


Fire and Starlight

by Cosmic Mayhem (cosmicmayhem)



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Angst, Happy Ending, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Poetry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-05
Updated: 2016-10-11
Packaged: 2018-08-19 16:40:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8217362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmicmayhem/pseuds/Cosmic%20Mayhem
Summary: "You found my notebook," Nursey shrugs, "congrats bro."---------Dex finds Nursey's notebook full of poetry. Chaos ensues.





	1. Fire and Starlight

**Author's Note:**

> Please excuse my horrible attempts at writing romantic poetry.

There is a knife sitting on the table between them, and Dex knows one of them is meant to kill the other with it. His eyes flicker back and forth between Nursey's face and their inevitability, waiting for Nursey to make the first move.

Nursey swallows back a sigh and leans back in his chair, relaxed. He raises one eyebrow, almost imperceptibly, before shattering their careful silence.

"And?"

"And? And?!" Dex clenches one fist, reaches the other out towards the well worn notebook on the table.

"You found my notebook," Nursey shrugs, "congrats bro."

Dex wants to pull his hair out by the roots. He rakes his fingers down his face, then laces them together in front of his mouth. He breathes, trying not to look Nursey in the face, then reaches for the notebook again and starts to read.

"I cannot decide if you are fire, or starlight, or something in between, or something more than either," Dex's eyes wander up to Nursey's face, which is looking back at him with the thinnest veil of nonchalance that Dex has ever seen. Fine. He continues reading, his voice growing more mocking and more furious with every word.

"I find mythology trapped in the cosmos of your  _ skin _ ?! I find the warmth of home in your  _ hair?! _ For the love of God, Nursey, what the fuck is this?"

Nursey crosses his arms, leans back further in his chair. Dex sees how tightly Nursey's hands are clenched, trying to hide beneath the frankly excessive layers of sweater.

"And normally I would just think this is your usual trashy poetry shit, but..." Dex breathes in deeply, and lunges for the knife, "It's titled FOR DEX. What the actual living fuck, man?!"

"Oh, yeah," Nursey leans back further in his chair, hovers right at the tipping point. If he pushes it further, he's going to fall. "I wrote you a poem, bro."

Dex can't take it anymore. He stretches one foot under the table, nudges the chair opposite him ever so slightly...

"Dude, what the fuck?" Nursey's voice echoes from the floor, where he lies flat on his back.

“Yeah. What the fuck.” Dex stands up, discards the notebook somewhere in the direction of Nursey’s voice, and walks away.

He walks away because he’s angry. He walks away because he’s desperate. He walks away because he thought he could handle this confrontation, thought he could handle a fight, but he should have known Nursey wouldn’t want a fight. He should have known it would be like this, all passive aggressive and “chill” and infuriating.

Dex goes back to his room. He programs something irrelevant, something that he barely pays any more attention to than he would a petitioner on the street. He searches his empty room for something to fix, some way to put the pieces back together, to put his pieces back together, because he can feel himself falling apart.

And when Nursey comes around that evening, pounding on his door and begging him to open up, Dex does nothing. Except, that’s not entirely correct. Dex slumps against the door, back pressed firmly against the wood, forcing himself to listen to every painful detail of Nursey’s frantic demands and apologies and pleas.

He stays there, slumped against the floor, until the early rays of dawn pierce his thin window shades and squirm into his eyes. And then, he stays there some more, because he really can’t handle going to class right now.


	2. Now Kiss

Nursey washes his face with the hottest water he can pull forth from the terrible dorm sinks. It’s still not very hot, but it’ll have to do. He lets the water soak into his skin before rewashing his face, this time with much colder water. 

He sighs deeply, looking up into the mirror and praying that it’s enough to reduce the puffiness under his eyes. As for the redness, he’ll just blame that on lack of sleep or smoking too much pot.

He makes it through his classes. His poetry teacher gives him shit for turning in some shit poetry about rocks or dirt or whatever it was he thought suitable to write about at the last minute that  _ wasn’t _ Dex.

He keeps the well worn notebook at the bottom of his backpack. He meant to throw it out, to rip it or burn it or in some way destroy it, and along with it the events of the previous afternoon. He doesn’t.

He doesn’t speak to Dex at all that day, either. In fact, it’s not until morning practice the next day that he even sees him, and even then they share nothing more than stunted “hello”s.

Ransom comes up to him after practice, corners him as he tries to leave the locker room and demands to know why he wasn’t on top of his game, why he wouldn’t even look at Dex.

“It’s chill, don’t worry,” Nursey responds, “Dex just doesn’t know how to chill, as per usual.”

Ransom practically kidnaps him after class that afternoon, carrying him like a sack across the campus to the Haus.

“Stay here,” Ransom demands, after promptly depositing Nursey in the backyard. A few minutes later, Holster arrives with Dex following close behind. At least, until Dex sees Nursey, at which point he turns and tries to run, only to be caught by Ransom standing behind him.

“Derek,” Dex says coldly after Holster shuts him in the backyard, too.

“Will.”

“Now kiss!” Ransom yells from inside, laughing.

“We’re not letting you back inside until you’re friends,” Holster adds.

“Think we can hop the fence?” Nursey offers, then raises the white flag, “I’ll give you a boost over.”

“Stop. Just, just stop, okay? Stop pretending like this didn’t happen!”

“Will…”

“No. Don’t ‘Will’ me. For once in your life would you just stop being so goddamned ‘chill’ and actually acknowledge this? Come on, for the love of God, get mad, Nurse! Get mad that I read your stupid notebook or... or something! For Christ’s sake it’s like you’re not even human!”

“Dude, it’s no big deal.”

“Do not try to brush this off! It’s not ‘no big deal’ that you write fucking poetry about me. That’s fucking weird! It’s weird and it’s not okay!”

“Well you know what, it’s not my fault you hang around me all the time. Maybe if you would just  _ fuck off _ and let me make my own goddamned friends, I would have something else to write about that’s even marginally better than a pile of fucking dirt on the ground! But you know what, I would rather write about literal shit than  _ ever _ write about you again. So I’m fucking sorry that your tight ass got all wound up about a  _ homework assignment _ , but seriously, just chill the fuck out about it.”

“Fine.”

“Fine.”


	3. Chowder

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More of a half chapter, but I didn't know where else to put it.

“Hey, Bitty?” Chowder knocks on the kitchen door late one evening as Bitty cooks something that smells like cinnamon and love.

“Yes? What’s up?” Bitty asks, barely turning away from his recipe book.

“I’m really worried… it’s about Dex and Nursey…”

“Oh, honey, are they fighting again?”

“No. Well, yes. I don’t know. It’s just… they haven’t talked to each other in like two weeks and usually they just argue and then keep arguing, but this time… what if something really bad happened?”

“I’m sure it’s nothing, but I’ll see if I can talk a little sense into them tomorrow after practice. Don’t worry yourself too much. Just get some sleep, okay?”

“Okay.”


	4. Bitty's Knife

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for Bitty's knife and also for internalized homophobia....

Once again, Dex finds himself at a table, with a knife between himself and Nursey. But this time, it’s a literal knife and it’s wielded by Bitty as he aggressively chops apples.

“So I’ve heard y’all had a bit of a falling out,”  _ chop. _ “And I’m not too happy to hear about that,”  _ chop.  _ “So I was just wondering,”  _ chop.  _ “If y’all could tell me what’s been going on,”  _ chop.  _ “And then maybe we can figure something out,”  _ chop. Chop. Chop. _

“Well I..” Dex jumps to answer first, but is cut off by yet another loud  _ chop. _

“Now Dex, I know you have something to say,”  _ chop.  _ “But seein’ as you always have something to say,”  _ chop.  _ “I was thinking Nursey could start us off for a change,”  _ chop. _

“Nah, Dex can talk,” Nursey shrugs, looking down at his hands instead of  _ watching Bitty’s knife with a look of pure terror like any sane person would be doing. _

“No,”  _ chop. _ “I want to hear from you first today, Derek,”  _ chop _ . “I know you have something to say,”  _ chop. Chop. Chop. _

“Dex started it,” he mumbles, looking all too much like a little kid in trouble with the teacher for fighting with a classmate.

“Oh really? I started it? Because I seem to remember…”  _ Chop. _

“And why, Nursey, do you say Dex started it?”  _ chop. _

“He’s the one who threw a fit because I used him for some stupid homework assignment.”

“And why were you so upset about this, Dex?”  _ chop. _

“It was some fucking weird ass poetry about my fucking hair and skin and shit! That’s not o-fucking-kay.”

“Mhmm,”  _ chop. _ “And Dex, you confronted Nursey about this?”  _ chop. _

“Yeah, and..”  _ Chop. _

“And Nursey,”  _ chop _ . “What did you do when Dex confronted you?”  _ chop. _

“I told him to chill.”

“Alright, I think I see the problem. Nursey, you know Dex doesn’t like being told to ‘chill.’”

“Doesn’t change the fact that he has no chill.”

At this, Dex rises from the table suddenly, hands slammed down on the tabletop, ready to leap across the table and fight Nursey if not for the fact that Bitty had turned away from his apples and was now casually wielding the knife in Dex’s direction.

“Dex, I think you’d better sit back down,” Bitty raises an eyebrow, lowering the knife just slightly enough to indicate Dex should return to his chair. He sits slowly, more afraid of the tiny blonde boy in front of him than he had ever been. It is in this moment that he realizes Bitty probably could and would kill him with that knife, and, knowing Bitty, he would be entirely in the right. Dex clenches his jaw, determined not to make any more sudden outbursts.

“Dex, why do you think you were so uncomfortable with Nursey’s poetry?”

“It’s, it’s just…” Dex splutteres, waving his hands around as if he can somehow catch an explanation out of the air.

“It’s just what, Dex?” Bitty sets down the knife, folds his hands, really  _ looks _ at Dex.

“Yeah Dex, tell him,” Nursey smirks, looking between Dex and Bitty and back to Dex, “I really want to hear why you think I can’t write a poem about my  _ friend _ for a homework assignment. Tell him the truth.  _ Tell him. _ ”

The last “tell him” echoes through Dex’s head, eyes swimming, hyperfocused on Nursey’s mouth as his lips curl around the consonants. He wants to choke out a million different words; truths and lies and excuses and realities. He wants to say “because it gave me hope.” He wants to say “because I’m not supposed to feel like this.” He wants to say “Because you don’t write those things about your friend.” He wants to say “because where I’m from, it would get you killed.”

Instead, he makes a mistake.

Instead, the words swimming in his head condense into only one word, one common thread.

“Gay.”

“I see,” Bitty stands, brings his tray of sliced apples to the counter, rummages through the fridge to find the dough he had set aside to chill. “You can leave now.” 

Bitty doesn’t so much as glance back at them.

“Wowwww,” Nursey draws out the word, voice low, also refusing to look at Dex. He rises, goes to stand next to Bitty, whispers low and fast.

Dex looks at his hands beneath the table, head still swimming, trying to understand what just happened.

“Wh.. what?” he finally manages to force out.

“You should go, man,” Nursey finally turns to look at him, a fire in his eyes that Dex has never seen before, not even when Nursey yelled at him in the backyard.

“Wait, I don’t understand. I…” Dex thinks back to the words he said, finally strings the two sentences together. It’s just… Gay. “No, I… I… me.” Dex finally points to himself, both hands folded into his chest. “Me.”

“What are you trying to say? Because unless it’s an apology for being a homophobic piece of shit, you better not say it.” Nursey’s words burn like hot water on a sunburn.

Dex stands, ready to walk out the door. “Me,” he says again, voice softened by a different kind of desperation. “I was talking about me. I’m gay.”

He walks out the door before he can force himself to look into either of their faces.

 

By the time Nursey comes knocking on his dorm room door that night, Dex has given up on fixing things, given up on putting his pieces back together. Instead, he’s tearing things apart. His dresser has been disassembled, lies in pieces on the floor. Clothes are thrown around the room at random, his bed unmade. And when Nursey pushes open the door he mistakenly left ajar, Dex is sitting on the floor, screwdriver in hand, taking apart his bedframe.

“Whoa, dude, what the fuck?”  Nursey tries to take in the state of the room, fails, stands, mouth gaping, staring at Dex.

“Nurseyyyy!” Dex smiles, all teeth, looking all too much like someone who has been pushed past their breaking point.

“Hey, are you okay? Why are you taking your shit apart? Let me,” Nursey tries to take the screwdriver away from Dex, “Let me take this real quick, okay?”

“No,” Dex yanks the screwdriver back, resumes working on a particularly stubborn screw.

“Dex, this isn’t okay!” Nursey runs a hand through his (perfectly groomed) hair, practically tearing it out by the roots.

“Dude,” Dex turns to Nursey, smiles again, more gently this time. “Chill.”

Nursey stumbles back into the hallway, hands fumbling with his phone.

“Bitty, something’s wrong.”

No more than 15 minutes later, Nursey and Bitty stand in the mess of Dex’s room, surveying the damage. Dex still sits on the floor, working on the particularly stubborn screw, not realizing that he’s trying to use a phillips head screwdriver on a flathead screw. Neither Nursey nor Bitty wants to tell him.

“See what I mean?” Nursey mumbles to Bitty, “What do we do?”


	5. Puzzle Pieces

For the rest of the day, Dex’s mind is blissfully blank. This, he thinks, must be what it feels like to be as chill as Nursey. Nice and blank and peaceful. He takes things apart. He deconstructs his room, and with it, he deconstructs his own complicated thoughts until he’s left with nothing but the pieces which suddenly fit together like a puzzle.

He’s going to kiss Nursey.

It makes sense, really. Once he’s taken apart the snarls of  _ what if’s _ and  _ now what’s _ , he’s left with only the facts. He’s gay. He likes Nursey. Nursey knows that Dex is gay. Nursey wrote a nice poem about Dex. He has a chance. He should take that chance. He should kiss Nursey.

And all is good and fine and nervous and excited as he makes his way across campus to Nursey’s dorm, until he remembers one thing.

The homework assignment.

Nursey didn’t write a poem about him because he actually liked him. Nursey wrote the poem because it was a homework assignment. He was nothing more than a homework assignment.

So Dex does the only thing he really can at that moment. He goes back to his dorm, sits down, and starts to put the pieces of his room back together. He will not make a big deal about it, he won’t cry, he won’t be disappointed. He’ll just have to chill.

It’s after he’s finished reconstructing his bed and his dresser and his desk, after he’s almost finished putting things away, when he realizes that something in his room does not belong.

A notebook.

It’s not one of the spiral bound notebooks he takes to class, nor is it one of his composition books he uses when he’s working on some kind of project and he needs to put his ideas onto paper. It’s also not the well worn leather bound notebook of Nursey’s that Dex had stumbled upon weeks ago.

It’s small and rectangular, with spiral binding at the top, like something a reporter would use in a  movie. The cover is dark blue, and when Dex flips it open, an army of blue ink lines up in front of him in Nursey’s perfect, precise handwriting. 

_ 11-26 _

_ I can’t let this happen. Can’t let myself fall back into this hole. But every time I try to climb out, I just dig myself deeper. _

_ Dex crinkles his nose when he’s angry. It’s frustratingly adorable. Sometimes I try to piss him off just so I can see the little wrinkles that climb up the sides of his nose and underneath his eyes. Other times I do it just so that maybe I can have some space to get over this stupid crush. _

_ Dex would never go for a guy like me. Dex would never go for a guy, period. _

_ This would be easier if he hated me. But somehow he doesn’t, no matter what I do to try to make him mad. _

_ 11-30 _

_ Bitty says “never fall for a straight boy.” I know he’s talking about himself, but I can’t help the feeling that he’s talking to me too. If only I knew how to tell him, how to find someone to talk to. But I can’t. I have to do this alone. _

_ 12-2 _

_ Dex sticks his tongue out when he’s working hard. Not enough to be obvious, but if you pay attention when he’s working through a particularly tough bit of code, or fixing something difficult, you can see the front of his tongue trapped between his lips. _

_ God, I want to kiss him. _

_ 1-14 _

_ I think we’re starting to become friends. I remind myself that this is what I wanted. I remind myself that no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t bring myself to make Dex hate me. _

_ 1-19 _

_ Now he hates me. _

_ 1-20 _

_ Haven’t seen him all day. _

_ 1-21 _

_ Lost my chill. Lost Dex. _

 

_ 1-24 _

_ Hey Dex. I hope you’re reading this. I… you’re freaking out right now and I don’t know what to do. Bitty says I should just give you space. Let you calm down. But I can’t leave you alone when this is over. _

_ It breaks my heart to see you like this. _

_ I can’t keep lying to you. I can’t keep coming up with excuses to hide the fact that I’m in love with you. Have been for a while. _

_ I didn’t know you were going through this. Sometimes I’m so goddamned stupid. How could I have forgotten that we grew up so differently. Your hometown… how could I have expected you to be “chill” about all this? _

_ I’m in love with you. _

_ I love you. _

_ Whenever you read this… I’ll be waiting. No matter what you say. Whether you love me back or not. I don’t care. I just… I can only hope that we can still be friends. _

 

Nursey paces the floor of his room, back and forth, over and over. It’s been almost two hours since he’d left Dex’s room, left his notebook in there. It’s been the most excruciating two hours of his life. Any minute Dex could knock on his door. Any minute Dex could confess his love for him, or reject him. Any minute Nursey’s heart could be broken. Any minute…

_ Knock knock knockknockknock. _

The knocking starts slowly, speeds up, frantic. Nursey practically runs to the door and throws it open to see Dex, out of breath, holding his blue notebook.

“I… this… ran…” Dex gasps between deep breaths, stumbles through the doorframe towards Nursey. Nursey freezes for a moment, his whole life perched on the balance between what Dex does next.

Dex kisses him.

It’s frantic and desperate and imperfect, but it’s a kiss all the same. And when Nursey finally pulls back to breathe, Dex is grinning like an idiot. Nursey can’t help the laugh that slips out.

“What’s so funny?”

“Nothing,” Nursey manages between fits of laughter, “We’re just a couple of dumbasses though, aren’t we?”

“Me? No way,” Dex chuckles, “I think you’re the dumbass here.”

“Really? Me? You’re the one who read that poem and thought that somehow I  _ wasn’t _ totally gay for you.”

“It was unclear.”

At this, Nursey laughs harder until his sides begin to ache and tears form at the corners of his eyes. Dex, in turn, laughs harder too.

 

“Now what?” Nursey finally manages, when the two of them have stopped laughing enough to breathe again.

“Well…” Dex blushes, hand rubbing the back of his neck nervously, “We could do that kissing thing again?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope y'all enjoyed this. Thanks for reading!!


End file.
